We are near an Air Force base with Sandia National Lab that is involved with nuclear defense. If an enemy targets that, we are likely dead from the initial exposure or the loss of shelter. The base is just south and next to the Albuquerque airport. East, 4.5 hours outside Amarillo is another facility. 3 hours North is Los Alamos. Its been nice knowing you.
A very timely article! I’ve been purchasing some basic dehydrated foods to experiment with this past month or so and hope to start cooking with them in the new year. I want to see what I will use and what, if anything, won’t be as popular. I’m starting small, but really looking forward to playing with them. 🙂 Also, there is something very seductive about not having to worry about whether or not I have any fresh eggs or milk or sour cream on hand just when I need them!

Precious Metals – Investigate this for yourself, but I find the arguments and historical track records against fiat currency and the current rumblings of Government wanting to take care of your investments for you very compelling. Gold is easier to transport with the high cost to weight, but you might have problems cashing a gold coin for a tank of gas. Silver is where I have chosen to invest in precious metals.

Counter-terrorism expert Michael Clarke, who specialises in defence studies, has urged the public to be ready for â€œcyber warfareâ€ within the next two or three weeks. He said: â€I suspect Russia will choose not to respond in military terms. But cyber warfare is highly likely. "It will be an attack on national infrastructure, not just upsetting city firms, but getting inside the transport system, or the health system, or air traffic control. It could affect everyone."
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“Everything started flying out,” she says. Buckets and cans rolled out of the pantry and down the side of the mountain. Hurricane Maria claimed almost all the food Jennifer had stockpiled, in addition to more than 30 chickens, two cows, four pigs, six ducks, and a turkey. “I had prepped for two and a half years, and I ended up with preps for six months,” she says.
In the next decade Howard Ruff warned about socio-economic collapse in his 1974 book Famine and Survival in America. Ruff's book was published during a period of rampant inflation in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. Most of the elements of survivalism can be found there, including advice on food storage. The book championed the claim that precious metals, such as gold and silver, have an intrinsic worth that makes them more usable in the event of a socioeconomic collapse than fiat currency. Ruff later published milder variations of the same themes, such as How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years, a best-seller in 1979.
Not so sure I agree with some of this list. Sure, you need to clean water, shelf-stable foods and alternative ways to cook it, but not so sure I would recommend beginning preppers bother with a rifle or seeds quite yet. I would suggest they worry about items like a comprehensive first aid and hygiene/sanitation concerns first. You need to be able to get through a disaster before you should worry about a long term survival scenario.
The second point you should know is this — suppose you do manage to die a quick, merciful death. What about your kids? Your grandkids? What kind of future will they face on their own? Foraging for food, drinking tainted water, becoming easy targets for human predators…is that really the future you would wish upon them? For that reason alone, it makes sense to become educated about nuclear events, how to prepare for them, and how to survive them.
I love my bread machine and hope to use it as well although I do know how to bake traditional bread too. I just baked my first loaf of bread using home-milled flour. I made a 100% whole wheat bread and used a powdered egg plus some vital gluten. It was a bit more dense than normal – I should have added more water to account for the extra gluten (4 TBL). Still, it was quite delicious 🙂
A serious, coordinated cyber attack could easily disrupt us enough to cause social collapse – and from the attacker’s point of view, it’s even safer than an EMP. It’s hard to prove who carried it out; even if you can pin down where the attackers were located, their government can claim it was nothing to do with them. Meanwhile the attack could cause a runaway collapse, where the failure of one system brings down others in a cascade it could take years to recover from.

In other words, the doomsday “preppers” you may have previously viewed as paranoid might just be onto something. With the idea that it may be high time to prepare for the worst, we’ve rounded up a selection of end-of-days bunkers on the market, potentially enabling you to survive annihilation and help carry on the torch for humanity. There are properties available at every price point, ranging from $25,000 up into the millions, and they run the gamut from basic survivalist co-op apartments to vast underground former military compounds left over from the Cold War.

Last thought. I live in a small subdivision, in a small southern town, and a lot of the stuff I mentioned, are very natural to us, because we grew up around it. I can’t even remember the last time I bought a tomato at the grocery store! Our small community established our own disaster plan in an effort that if there was a great catastrophe or crisis, we can block off our subdivision and go straight into “survival mode”…it is not that hard to do, and remember there is always safety in numbers.

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Put dry ingredients in a bowl and sift through. Add liquid and knead for 5-10 minutes. Let dough rest in bowl covered for at least 10 minutes. You can wait a few hours even if you get distracted. Knead again for 5 minutes. At this point you can leave your dough until later or you can shape or roll it out and fill it and let rise for 30 minutes to an hour before baking.
It’s impossible to carry all the food you will need for a week unless you’re eating very high density proteins like nuts. Nuts and dried meat are two of the easiest off-the-cuff meals. Canned food has a lot of water that is wasted during the cooking process. Stay away from heavily flavored or salted nuts. The amount of salt present in the unsalted nut mixes is still sufficient enough to replace electrolytes.
He believes prepping is key but having the mental strength to survive is the unknown factor. “It doesn’t matter how many containers of food you have or what you have organised, if you are not mentally ready for it you probably won’t survive either,” he says. “Some people have an instinct to keep going but even preppers could turn around when it all happens and fall in a heap.”
You'll find staples like powdered butter, freeze-dried meats, cereals, grains, pasta, fruits and vegetables, and baking ingredients. They also offer a great selection of entrees, including popular Mountain House meals like turkey tetrazzini, rice pilaf, and sweet and sour pork. Many of these are included in their emergency kits that will keep you fed for days or months at a time.
If you are in a tight spot and cannot cook or prepare anything, it is a very good idea to have ready to go meals and freeze dried foods on hand. Things like MREs (meals ready to eat), trail mix, beef jerky, candy and food that make you happy (good for your psychological health) can come in handy in a tight spot. Check out our guide on how to prepare DIY MREs to prepare you for any emergencies.

Cooking fats can be substituted in most cases with the exception being frying. Some oils and fats have a lower smoke point than others. I have never had any luck using olive oil for trying to fry potatoes to a crispy state but grape seed oil, peanut oil, or lard does just fine. Pie crusts made from lard, flour, salt, and a little water are really good. You really don’t need butter to make a flaky crust if you have lard.

2. 20 pounds of Pinto Beans. Like rice, beans are the backbone to every food storage plan. You may substitute white, kidney or other types of dried beans but honestly, pintos are one of the least expensive dried beans and in my opinion, one of the tastiest. Need help cooking beans? when you are done here be sure to read Survival Woman Learns to Cook Dried Beans and you should too and Respect for the Lowly Pinto Bean.

Canned meat: Get about 20 cans of assorted meats. Without refrigeration it will be hard to keep meat from spoiling, and that’s if you can get it in the first place. There are quite a few options, SPAM, Ham, Beef, Chicken, Tuna and sardines, but remember buy what you eat now. Also make sure you have a manual can opener, your electric can opener might not work.
Purchase some thermometers from local home repair stores like Lowe’s, Menard’s, Home Depot, etc. I use one outside to see the outside temperature year round, one in the garage just to see where we stand year round and one in my storage area in the lower level (basement)of the house. Check them on a regular basis. Last winter was so cold and hubby wanted the temperature raised a little more in the house (he is a little older than me and I am going thru the change)but I was worried my food supplies might get too warm or there would be too much up and down changes of temperature. So every day I would go to the lower level (basement), open the door to the storage area and see what the thermometer was reading, if it was too cold I would leave the doors opened a bit and close them back when my readings stayed consistent. There is no heat pumped into this area only what may drift in under the door from the outer area that is heated or air conditioned. I try to keep my food supplies stable around 58 to 62 degrees year round.So far this temperature range is working, the canned food is still maintaining flavor, color and passes the smell test. No signs of critters either. Next step will be to add gallon buckets of food items and I will take into consideration all that I have read from all of you on things that did not go according to plan. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Keep on prepping.

Followers of James Wesley Rawles[45] often prepare for multiple scenarios with fortified and well-equipped rural survival retreats.[46] This group anticipates a near-term crisis and seek to be well-armed as well as ready to dispense charity in the event of a disaster.[43] Most take a "deep larder" approach and store food to last years, and a central tenet is geographic seclusion in the northern US intermountain region.[47] They emphasize practical self-sufficiency and homesteading skills.[47]

Yup, you’re right about the dehydrated food having around half the daily recommended calorie count for adults – but I still feel they’re valuable if you can afford it. A food stockpile that big will a least help you get by for the year, regardless of whether you’ll be thriving. And it’s easier (in my opinion) to supplement a stockpile than to depend on growing, hunting, trapping, or fishing everything yourself, especially if you’re not used to doing it.

Each bunker provides enough floor area, with attic potential, to comfortably accommodate 10-20 people and the needed supplies, which would last for a year or more. An autonomous shelterization from virtually any catastrophic event. All bunkers feature a standard 26.5’ interior width, with lengths of 60’ and 80’, each with a 13’ high ceiling to the top of the interior arch. Protection will be mitigated for virtually all known threats as each bunker includes a massive existing concrete and steel (4’ x 8’) blast door, that may be additionally sealed to stop all water, air and gas permeation; an air and exhaust ventilation shaft, and space for a rear ceiling escape hatch that can be embedded into the concrete structure as a secondary emergency exit.

If you have a bunker in the blast radius of a nuclear bomb, (the usual rationale for a bunker), it won’t survive. And, because you’ll have very little notice, if any, in the case of a nuclear bomb or explosion, you’ll have to be near your bunker when it goes off. Which means those of you who live in a potential attack location probably won’t be saved by a bunker.

In an end of the world situation, we won’t have to worry about too much salt or too much sugar. Our main concerns will be keeping warm, getting potable water and enough to eat. A steady diet of tuna fish, canned meats, pasta, bean and rice will quickly get old. You will be happy to have the sugary canned fruit which will add very necessary calories to your diet and provide energy. The high salt which is dangerous now will provide necessary salts when you have otherwise run out of salt for cooking. In addition, most of the prepared foods are prepared to appeal to our taste buds. Food companies spend big money on making “convenience”

It would be tight in my climate but there are days we could be ok on a gal./per for both cooking and basic hygeine, and days we would be quite stinky…when there is no water. That is the way, you allow something less important to slide a day or part of a day…. For the summer temps of 90 and humidity of 65-80%, no way. Closer to 2 gallons a day for drinking alone. as far as baths…. There is what is called a “pan bath” or “rag bath” One takes a cloth wets it with amount of water to totally wet coth adds soap and washes everything needed…puts a little more water over that rag/ or another and rinses it and ones self wih a second wipe over …Ideal? no ..Where things are not ideal, people learn to make do.
A serious, coordinated cyber attack could easily disrupt us enough to cause social collapse – and from the attacker’s point of view, it’s even safer than an EMP. It’s hard to prove who carried it out; even if you can pin down where the attackers were located, their government can claim it was nothing to do with them. Meanwhile the attack could cause a runaway collapse, where the failure of one system brings down others in a cascade it could take years to recover from.
Where there used to be occasional forays into the bush with minimal equipment to test his mettle, now there are several buried caches in specific but remote bug-out locations on public land. The caches include dried beans, rice, water purification and fire-starting devices. “Some people say – well, what if you never use it. But it doesn’t cost much and, if we do need it, it is there.”
Survivalists, otherwise known as "doomsday preppers," are having a moment of shine in popular culture. Some people believe that peppers are planning for nuclear warfare, or the world's inevitable economic collapse. Some believe that they are protecting themselves from the upcoming zombie apocalypse. Others believe that these pre-apocalypse preppers and planners are simply and certifiably insane.

Below are two Prepper Supplies Checklist resources. The first is a free PDF of the original 17-page preppers supplies checklist. Over the years, I’ve collected feedback on how to improve the list and compiled the updated preppers supplies checklist into a book. The book is a 35-page “Preparedness Plan Workbook”. There are 9 categories of preparedness that are covered: Water, Food, Warmth, Light, First Aid, Hygiene, Communication, Financial, and Protection/Hunting. The Food & Water Checklists include formulas to determine how much of each you will need depending on the size of your family/group.

There is a belief that President Trump will soon move to fire Special Prosecutor Mueller. This would result in a large protest within 24 hours of the firing. The protest would be semi-spontaneous and more than likely to happen on short notice. Based on this information, beginning tomorrow, April 19, 2018, many police departments' personnel are being required to bring a full uniform and any issued protective equipment (riot gear) with them to work until further notice.

According to the inveterate salesman Vicino, plenty of people will, and many already have. He declined to disclose how many leases he has sold, and the Journal has no way to verify his claims, but he said the first phase of the project is nearly sold out. That first phase consists of the "F'' block of bunkers, one of seven lettered blocks of bunkers being offered for lease.

as a contractor that provided service for another contractor that constructed in-ground pools the first thing I would do is drill some shallow wells in the area and see what your water level underground is. I ran into a few of these underground shelters built in the cold war period that were filled within a few feet of the top. a death trap for any child who finds its entrance. good clue if your home has a sump pump the water table may be high enough to think twice of the underground shelter.

My military experience was let’s just say in the last century and MREs have gone through some pretty decent changes and updates since the time I was chowing down. For those who don’t know what an MRE is, the Acronym stands for Meal Ready to Eat and this is what is given to our soldiers when they aren’t near a mess hall. When I was in the field we would usually get an MRE for lunch. Breakfast and dinners would be a hot meal, or it started out as hot when we crowded around the mess tent or the insulated containers they drove out to us on the back of a jeep. By the time you got somewhere to eat your meal it was usually cold. We would only go to the field in the winter time naturally.
Onsite amenities are planned to include, a General Store, a members-only Restaurant & Bar, BBQ areas, a Community Theater, Hot Tub Spa, Gym, Medical Clinic, Hydroponic Gardens, Meeting Rooms, Classrooms, a Chapel, Horse Stables, Shooting Ranges, Vivos Equipment and Construction Supply Depot, Woodworking Shop, Maintenance Shop, Metal Fabrication Shop, and a fully built-out showroom bunker to demonstrate how each can be outfitted and equipped.
I know it’s not an incredibly expensive product, but a food dehydrator has been on my prepper wishlist for a long time. They’re so convenient, especially when you have ones with so many racks like the Excalibur on hand. Yes, you can dehydrate foods without one, but it’s not as easy to do, and thus for me, makes it much less likely I’ll actually bother to do it. Major wishlist item here.
2. 20 pounds of Pinto Beans. Like rice, beans are the backbone to every food storage plan. You may substitute white, kidney or other types of dried beans but honestly, pintos are one of the least expensive dried beans and in my opinion, one of the tastiest. Need help cooking beans? when you are done here be sure to read Survival Woman Learns to Cook Dried Beans and you should too and Respect for the Lowly Pinto Bean.

11/2/18 TerrorismEnable IntenseDebate Comments: Enable IntenseDebate CommentsIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling Iran the “most potent force of militant Islam,” says he has warned Europe of possible Iranian attacks on its soil. Speaking to reporters on 1 November after talks with his Bulgarian counterpart in Sofia, Netanyahu said radical Islam is a threat to the world and that Israel has recently revealed a number of Iranian plots to carry out attacks on European soil. read mor […]

Some people carry both, but most choose one or the other. Multi-tools are nice for everyday utility like opening a bottle or fixing a screw on your sunglasses. There are tons of great options from popular brands like Leatherman and Gerber. But as in most things, the 80-20 rule applies here, and you’ll find that you won’t use most of the features in the extra-gadgety options and should avoid the unnecessary weight.
Each family who purchased a unit will receive a 2500 square feet apartment unit with design based on their own specifications. It remains a huge question as to how much they need to pay to get themselves into this underground shelter. Sources say that families will need to pay for staffing, management, and other facility costs on top of the base sum for their unit.
Potable Water Supply –Your basic supply should be a gallon per day, that will cover drinking and basic sanitation. That is per person, and is a baseline. Hotter climates necessitate more, and some people just need more water. Your next trip out to the grocery, grab at least a 3 day supply. You should have no less than a week’s worth of water on hand for all family members. Get extra if you are storing a lot of food that requires water to prepare.

I originally had the same idea until I did some research on Google. I found that overseas containers are NOT suitable for underground placement. Besides the metal being prone to rust over time, the units are built for strength in the corners to support lifting. The sides have very little strength to withstand inward pressure created by backfilling. Depending on size, location and delivery, the containers will cost $2000 and up. I bought 17.5 cu yards of redimix, fiber reinforced concrete for $2100. Just a thought.

Don’t overlook the importance of a solid financial foundation in prepping — it reduces your chances of an emergency happening in the first place and makes them much easier to handle when they do. Check out our money management basics for normal preppers with tips on building an emergency “rainy day” fund and how to change the way you save, budget, spend, and invest.

Believers in QAnon—a conspiracy theory based on a series of internet clues posted by an anonymous character named “Q” that posits a world in which Trump and the military are engaged in ceaseless, secret war with globalist Democratic pedophiles—think the text could mark the start of “The Storm,” a fantastical MAGA dream in which Trump’s political enemies will be arrested and tried at military tribunals.

I think in addition to dry beans, rice and such, that I would have some home canned versions of these in case water is at a premium. Beans, rice, quinoa, etc., require lots of water, and if it is in short supply you are going to be in trouble. Having HOME canned versions of these will mean that until water is more readily available, you can eat and have protein available to you. I’ve heard of others ‘canning’ water, too!
I agree, Enigma. What is wrong with our society isn’t a racial issue so much as it’s a socio-economic issue. Being presented as a predominantly racial/political/Republican/Democratic issue is done to drive us as a people further apart. Why? Because “a house divided against itself cannot stand” and by bringing down the Republic the ‘left’ can fill the resulting vacuum. By keeping us from communicating with each other we cannot unite with each other to drive the snakes out of D.C. By labeling all Trump voting Republicans as vile, rascist, sexist, gun-totin’, tobbaccy-chewin’, n!@@€£-lynchin’ assholes, the left leaning elitists are selectively expunging the Democratic record of rascism (tell that to Medgar Evars BTW), and laying all the blame for 400 years of treating other humans like crap at the feet of the political party of Lincoln. By exacerbating and then playing off of white man’s guilt the dems have nicely set up the foundations for another power grab and a future where race riots are normal, the police are evil, sick maniacs, every person of color is an innocent merely striving to right the wrongs of society, and every white person is a racist at heart who longs to put our brethren of color back in chains. Then along comes whomever and everything will be peaches and cream for those in the elite of the ruling party. If any of this sounded vaguely familiar its because these are the same tactics used by the Nazis and by the communists. And we all know how that turned out.
The next thing that you should be aware of is how to use the food that you have prepped and stored. Get familiar with stored-food preparation and the best way to do this is to use it. Get a couple of food-storage cookbooks, or create your own with a little online research. This way you and your family can become familiar with how to use and eat these types of foods.
“Everything started flying out,” she says. Buckets and cans rolled out of the pantry and down the side of the mountain. Hurricane Maria claimed almost all the food Jennifer had stockpiled, in addition to more than 30 chickens, two cows, four pigs, six ducks, and a turkey. “I had prepped for two and a half years, and I ended up with preps for six months,” she says.
@Loonejack That WAS strange weather, wasn’t it. One storm after the other after the other. No relief for those poor people. Good idea not to live on the east coast. There are some saying that we are overdue for an Ice Age and that it could be here in the next decade or so but does any one REALLY know. It really does come down to speculation. There was a mini ice age in Europe from about the 16th to the 19th centuries. They’re not quite sure about the exact times. There were three particularly cold intervals: one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850, all separated by intervals of slight warming. Everything goes in cycles, especially the sun, and if we do experience a true ice age then we’ll just have to deal with it. I would think in a situation like that people would come together for mutual survival.
I keep several five gallon gas cans filled and ready for use. I don’t put any gas stabilizers in them, but I have stabilizers on hand. At the end of each quarter, I fill the cars with the gas from these cans, and go and get fresh. If the SHTF, and it looks like more time would be needed for the gas to keep, then and only then would I add the stabilizers to the gas.
My dad was a USN Seabee, who’s unit moved into Nagasaki, after the blast. He thought that most people,would find the post blast world extremely traumatizing and physically demanding. His comment re 1960s Hydrogen bomb which has since been eclipsed a thousandfold at least. The article didn’t address dealing with a Neutron bomb, which is designed to leave infrastructure intact, but intended instead to penetrate such deeply, to create cell damage to living organisms.
17. Spices and Condiments. Adding some spices and condiments to your food storage pantry will allow you to vary the taste of your storage foods, thus mitigating some of the boredom that is likely to occur over time. The exact mix of spices and condiments is up to you but some suggestions include garlic, chili, Tabasco (hot sauce), salsa, oregano, thyme and black pepper. For a full list of the best prepper herbs and spices, check out the BDS guide here.
Yes, another non-necessity, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I like having options and redundancies. We have the smaller version of the Solo Stove – the Titan, and it’s great, though we’d prefer a larger size than we’ve got. Solo Stoves are overbuilt, definitely a one-time purchase rocket stove, looks pretty stinkin’ good for what it is, and while, yes, you can totally have a regular fire-on-the-ground, this is one of those things that helps you out in the you-won’t-need-too-much-wood department. And if you’re at all into greyman survival – well you won’t be leaving a mess behind if you use one of these to contain your fire.

The funny thing about freeze-drying is it’s kind of an exception to the rule. Removing all the water from a floret of broccoli, for example, doesn’t turn it into something new; it simply transforms it into a slightly lesser version of itself. “Once you change the physical structure of something by drying it out all the way,” Allen said, “the texture is never really the same.”